I thought about calling Mom for about two seconds. She’d love to give me advice—as would Beth—but that wasn’t going to happen. I refused to share my personal life with either of them.
I resorted to my most reliable backup plan: I worried.
That night both of us tossed and turned. When we asked each other what was wrong, our answers matched. “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
The situation was all kinds of fucked up. I didn’t know how to fix it.
* * * *
I sat in the bed of my truck, letting my legs dangle as I kicked them, waiting for John to show up at Monique’s. The number of diners at the bakery this soon after Christmas was miniscule. Abe Behr and his boyfriend, to whom I’d sold all sorts of holiday decorations, passed me with a “How’s it going?” before they entered. Other than them, the people I recognized from downtown dwindled.
John rolled up in his ratty old Karmann Ghia, leaving a swirl of smoke behind him.
“You’re going to have to get that thing smogged, you know.” I jumped down from the truck bed. I didn’t know how close to stand next to him, which pissed me off. Why couldn’t we act here like we did at home? Okay, not as intimate, but not like strangers either.
After we took a couple of steps into the bakery, he stopped and looked at me.
“What’s got into you?”
“Nothing.” I shrugged. This was his problem, not mine. “You’re the one upset for the last few days.”
He shook his head. He didn’t meet my eyes.
Much to my chagrin, the first thing that happened was John was recognized as the sous-chef at the Silver Star. We were still debating what to order for lunch when two men burst out of the kitchen. The taller strode up to John, ready to shake his hand.
“Hey, John. Stella told me you were here. How’re you doing?” The tall, brown-haired guy pointed to the younger man standing behind him. “I don’t know if you’ve met Benny. He’s my new sous, a second-year student at the community college.”
John stood, shook hands all around, and introduced me. So much for bringing John to a small local place where he hadn’t been many times before. As they settled in to talk food and cooking, my mind wandered off. I still couldn’t figure out how everything had been going so well and suddenly wasn’t.
The men getting up from our table brought me back to the here and now.
“Sorry about that, Fen,” John said. “Eugene, the guy I was talking to, owns and runs this place now that his mother, Monique, passed away. He and Adam grew up together.”
“He seemed nice enough.”
“How would you know? You didn’t say two words.”
“What did I have to say to him? I’m a horticulture geek, not a chef.” I gave him a halfhearted smile. I’d wanted to make John relax, but he looked more wound up than ever.
We sat in silence for a few seconds before he turned to me, his face as serious as I’d ever seen it.
“What are we doing?”
My mind filled with quips and jokes. But I couldn’t do it. That was my question too.
“I don’t know. What should we be doing?”
John shrugged. “I’ve never been serious about a guy before. Never had a boyfriend or a relationship. If that’s what’s happening here.” He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t even know if you’re sticking around, what your long-term plans are, or if you even have any.”
He was so intent. His strong, scarred fingertips were beating on the table in front of him over and over again. But his stare was still and steady, as if he were boring into my mind and searching for answers.
“I have two job offers,” I admitted. “One’s at UCD, where I graduated, to join the faculty and teach botany and maybe some undergrad plant biology classes. I’d be free to extend my dissertation project and work on practical, everyday applications of the results I was finding.”
“What was the project?” His fingers had stopped moving, and now his gaze was even more intent.
“The health effects of houseplants on low-income children.” I shrugged. “I think I can prove that having houseplants in low-income housing units and in classrooms can produce cleaner air, which in turn can help kids do better in school.”
“That’s amazing.”
I could tell by the way he was staring that he wasn’t seeing my eyebrow ring, the turquoise hair, or the tattoo, but the other side of me that wasn’t very fun at all. In fact, he was seeing what I’d be if I didn’t try so hard to be normal. He saw my virtual pocket protector and my clipboards of data. Saw me meeting with elementary school teachers and talking them into having their classrooms become my petri dishes. Saw my long nights of analyzing the data and tweaking the experiments. He didn’t see beer or music or sex. He saw me in my drab.
“My other job offer is the same but different. I’ve been offered a grant from the NEA to continue a plants-in-the-classroom idea in underfunded schools in poor neighborhoods. Five schools have been selected, three in Sacramento and two in Oakland. I didn’t quite get the connection between the schools, but there they are.”
“So what are you going to do?”
I shrugged again. “Beth also said she’d love for me to stay on and work in the nursery.” I laughed. “Honestly? I’d like to take the grant and Beth’s offer. I don’t think I’m cut out to be Dr. Fenton Miller, Botany 101, eight to nine A.M. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Do you? Do I look like any teacher you ever had?”
The side of his mouth rose as if he saw some irony I was missing.
“I didn’t graduate from high school, remember? How should I know?”
“Yeah. Okay.” I sighed. “Well, when I decide what I’m really going to do, you’ll be the
